Key Arguments

• Imperative to ensure ‘no [parasite] climbs with you’ directly links ascent with exclusion of parasitic types.
• Defines the parasite as a clinging worm that fattens itself specifically on one’s ‘sick and wounded recesses,’ showing how it exploits vulnerability.
• Describes the parasite’s ‘art’ of divining where climbers grow weary, building its nest in grief, discouragement, and modesty—targeting transitional weaknesses.
• Notes the parasite nests ‘where the strong are weak, and the noble all too mild,’ highlighting a danger peculiar to the great: virtues turn to vulnerabilities.
• Ranks the parasite as ‘the most paltry kind,’ establishing moral-typological grounds for exclusion.

Source Quotes

19 I draw circles around myself and sacred boundaries; fewer and fewer climb with me upon ever higher mountains:– I build a mountainrange from ever more sacred mountains.– But wheresoever you may climb with me, O my brothers: see to it that no climbs with you! Parasite: that is a worm, crawling, clinging, that wants to fatten itself on your sick and wounded recesses.

19 I draw circles around myself and sacred boundaries; fewer and fewer climb with me upon ever higher mountains:– I build a mountainrange from ever more sacred mountains.– But wheresoever you may climb with me, O my brothers: see to it that no climbs with you! Parasite: that is a worm, crawling, clinging, that wants to fatten itself on your sick and wounded recesses. And is its art, that it divines where climbing souls are growing weary: in your grief and discouragement, in your tender modesty, it builds its disgusting nest.

Parasite: that is a worm, crawling, clinging, that wants to fatten itself on your sick and wounded recesses. And is its art, that it divines where climbing souls are growing weary: in your grief and discouragement, in your tender modesty, it builds its disgusting nest. Where the strong are weak, and the noble all too mild– there it builds its disgusting nest: the parasite lives where the great have small wounded recesses.

And is its art, that it divines where climbing souls are growing weary: in your grief and discouragement, in your tender modesty, it builds its disgusting nest. Where the strong are weak, and the noble all too mild– there it builds its disgusting nest: the parasite lives where the great have small wounded recesses. Which is the highest kind of all beings and which the most paltry?

Where the strong are weak, and the noble all too mild– there it builds its disgusting nest: the parasite lives where the great have small wounded recesses. Which is the highest kind of all beings and which the most paltry? The parasite is the most paltry kind; but whoever is of the highest kind will nourish the most parasites. For the soul that has the longest ladder and so reaches down deepest: how should the most parasites not sit on that?– – the most comprehensive soul, that can run and stray and roam the farthest within itself; the most necessary soul, that out of pleasure plunges itself into chance:– – the being soul, that dives into Becoming; the having soul, that to enter willing and longing– – that flees from itself and retrieves itself in the widest circle; the wisest soul, which folly exhorts most sweetly– – the soul that loves itself the most, in which all things have their streaming and counter-streaming and ebb and flood:– oh how should

Key Concepts

• But wheresoever you may climb with me, O my brothers: see to it that no climbs with you!
• Parasite: that is a worm, crawling, clinging, that wants to fatten itself on your sick and wounded recesses.
• And is its art, that it divines where climbing souls are growing weary: in your grief and discouragement, in your tender modesty, it builds its disgusting nest.
• Where the strong are weak, and the noble all too mild– there it builds its disgusting nest: the parasite lives where the great have small wounded recesses.
• Which is the highest kind of all beings and which the most paltry? The parasite is the most paltry kind;

Context

Immediately after announcing selective ascent, Zarathustra warns his ‘brothers’ against allowing parasites to join them and elaborates the parasite’s nature and tactics.

Perspectives

Nietzsche

Agrees: higher types must practice active hygiene of their milieu; decadence exploits convalescence. Compassion and modesty can be life‑threatening when unmanaged.

Zarathustra

Enjoins vigilant exclusion: protect your climb by refusing companionship to clingers who thrive on your wounds and tiredness.